The presentation includes area dancers from D.R.E.A.M. Studios, as well as Springfield performers Elaine Scott and Alysia Cutting Cosby.
A Boston-area based theater program, with a mission to present productions of "music and dance based on history" at different venues, will perform Haywood Fennell Sr.'s "18th Annual Harlem Renaissance Revisited With a Gospel Flavor" on April 12 at 4:30 p.m. in Judd Gymnasia of Springfield College.
The presentation includes area dancers from D.R.E.A.M. Studios, as well as Springfield performers Elaine Scott and Alysia Cutting Cosby. Springfield College students are also involved with the production, serving as stage hands and ushers.
"This is a joint venture and I just thought that it would be a great way to bridge communities together," said Tracy Woods, "The Harlem Renaissance has so much history."
Woods, owner of Springfield's Art for the Soul Gallery, in the Classical High Condominiums, and manager of the Artist Square Group Gallery in Tower Square, helped organize the collaborative event and bring Fennell's Oscar Micheaux Theater Program to the college. She said though there is an admission fee, "no one will be turned away."
Fennell, who grew up in Harlem, is a U.S. Army veteran and founder of the Tri-Ad Veterans League, which sponsors the theater program. He is author of a book of poetry and a number of plays.
His play touches on the history of slavery, as well as the accomplishments of black entrepreneurs such as Madame C.J. Walker, America’s first self-made female millionaire, and writers, like Langston Hughes. After the 1896, U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court that made racial segregation legal, many blacks migrated to Europe, or to cities in the North. New York City's Harlem became a mecca for black entertainers, scholars and activists.
Tickets for the event, in the west gymnasium at 263 Alden St., are $20, $10 for students and seniors. They are available from the college's multicultural affairs department, (413) 748-3249, or from Woods gallery in Tower Square, (413) 231-4598. A reception follows the performance that is sponsored in part by the Springfield Cultural Council, a local agency funded by a state agency the Mass Cultural Council.
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